UpdateFor the first time ever, I didn't finish the spring reading thing challenge! That doesn't mean I haven't read, just that I haven't been reading these particular books. However, the challenge states that I may change my list at any time, so I guess I could just exchange the last 6 books for some I have read, and consider it completed! ;)

14 Mar 2010

There really is nothing better than a really great opening hook in a novel - it piques the interest and curiousity and begs you to read more immediately. It lets you know that you've chosen a good book. And it gives you a bit of an idea of what you are in store for.

Here are some of my all-time favourite opening lines. Sometimes the books themselves unfortunately don't live up the the first line, but thankfully most often they do.

"If it had not rained on a certain May morning, Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been entirely different." From L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle.

"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." From J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcere's Stone.

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." From C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

"Ross Wakeman succeeded the first time he killed himself, but not the second or the third." From Jodi Picoult's Second Glance

"It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance." From Diana Gabaldon's Cross-Stitch/Outlander.

"People usually start life by being born." From Walter Moers' The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear.

"The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world." From Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

"I might as well say, right from the jump: it wasn't my usual kind of job." From Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book.

"I am what they call in out village "one who has not died yet" - a widow, eighty years old." From Lisa See's Snow-Flower and the Secret Fan.

"My father had a face that could stop a clock." From Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

(While I'm at it, check out the first sentence of Anne of Green Gables - it's an entire paragraph!)